5 ms·

But there is a looming population crisis, right? http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=japan+birth+rate http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=japan+birth+rate

by Zikes 11y ago

Retric 11y ago
Nope. China (365/sq mile) has less than 1/2 the population density of Japan (836/sq mile) and they instituted population control recently. Slowly shrinking populations are generally good for the average person and with most of there debt being internal Japan does not need to grow total GDP. As to rail lines losing money, how much do you think the average road make per year exactly.
- seanmcdirmid 11y ago
  China is in big trouble demographically. They recently relaxed the one child policy, and that isn't really enough. Sinking populations are bad when it comes to the pyramid nature of taking care of elderly.
- bpodgursky 11y ago
  I'm sorry, but basically anyone familiar with the demographics disagrees with you. (1) a TFR of 1.2 is not slowly shrinking, it is a collapse (2) you end up a dependency ratio of more than 1 retiree per worker very quickly. So no, it's not good news for anyone born today. (3) it is even worse, because Japan has the world's longest life expectancy. so that 1 child is going to have to support 4 generations of senior citizens. Any kid born today is going to be burdened by an incredibly expensive social net, making it even HARDER to afford to have enough children to even manage replacement. It is a serious catastrophe.
  - Gibbon1 11y ago
    It's not that bad since Japans infrastructure requirements are falling as well. And old people often don't require as many resource inputs as children and working age people. Unless you are talking the US with it's relatively unhealthy older population and bloated healthcare system[1] [1] You know where someone is checking out, the system gleefully spends a hundred grand to make sure their last few months of life totally sucks
    - jpatokal 11y ago
      Um, nope. Old people need a lot more health care than young ones, anywhere in the world: http://blogs-images.forbes.com/danmunro/files/2014/04/hccostsbyage.png http://blogs-images.forbes.com/danmunro/files/2014/04/hccost...
      - Gibbon1 11y ago
        It tends to balance out, while they need more health care, they use less of other resources. But put it this way, the US spends about 17% of it's GDP on healthcare. So an aging population is a serious issue. Say you double that and now it's 34% of GDP (yikes). Now consider Japan, 10%. And Japan has a significantly older demographic already. So say it rises 50% over twenty years to 15%. That's still better than the US right now. China's healthcare expenditures are 5% of GDP. Numbers from here. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS
  - Retric 11y ago
    Your wrong. Read up on the "per capita" effects of the Black Death which was linked to a temperary prosparity spike. In modern times. 2) the effects of declining population reduce the number of non productive children and increases the number of working childless females which more than compensates. It also drastically reduces new infrastructure needs. 3) your math is way off. A 65 year old worker +25y would be unlikely to have two 90 year old parents let alone four 115 year old grand parents. They would also have .7 children in the work force (65 - 25 ) = 40. So you don't stack more than one generation pluss it's 1.4 children per two parents. This is also just starting Japan had positive population growth in 2010. And negative 0.7% in 2014. The real issue for nations is needing positive GDP growth to keep up with external debt.
    - scythe 11y ago
      >Read up on the "per capita" effects of the Black Death which was linked to a temperary prosparity spike. The Black Death decreased the dependency ratio. The birthrate deficit will increase it. Furthermore the "spike in prosperity" was generally overstated, and may have been a result of increased trade (due to Mongol influence).
      - Retric 11y ago
        It took between 150 and 250 years for some areas to recover so the dependency ratio was only impacted for a relativly short part of that. Foreign wars are a more common ways for the issues your taking about as they kill workers not children or the elderly. WWII failed to have the issues your talking about. PS: We might be entering a time when economy's are more manpower limited than resource limited, but unemployment trends in the US don't support that assumption.
        scythe 11y ago
        WWII was devastating to the economies of Europe, Russia, East Asia, and North Africa. Do you just make stuff up or what? The period 1330-1480 was not marked by significant economic progress. Europe only started to get ahead of the rest of the world economically after the founding of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange around 1600.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
  Much like the US has all sorts of scrub lands in the west that knock down the population density numbers, China has all sorts of scrub lands in the west that knock down the population density numbers.
  - seanmcdirmid 11y ago
    Not just scrub lands. They literally have mountains everywhere, even between heavy populated eastern cities. If you take a bullet train from Beijing to Guangzhou, it is heavily tunneled for much of the entire trip, which makes the task even more amazing.
    - Retric 11y ago
      Japan is mostly mountans which is why 68.5% of the country is covered in forests. Where farms cover 50% of China and 12% of Japan. Now China has more land at higher elevation and less rainfall on the western half, but elevation is only an issue at steep gradients or extreme elevations. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Atlas_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China#/media/File%3AChina_topo.png https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Atlas_of_the_People%27s...
      - seanmcdirmid 11y ago
        Uhm...no. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_China > Although China's agricultural output is the largest in the world, only about 15% of its total land area can be cultivated. China's arable land, which represents 10% of the total arable land in the world, supports over 20% of the world's population. Of this approximately 1.4 million square kilometers of arable land, only about 1.2% (116,580 square kilometers) permanently supports crops and 525,800 square kilometers are irrigated. > China's limited space for farming has been a problem throughout its history, leading to chronic food shortage. While the production efficiency of farmland has grown over time, efforts to expand to the west and the north have met with limited success, as such land is generally colder and drier than traditional farmlands to the east. China and Japan really aren't that far off on topology.

But there is a looming population crisis, right? http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=japan+birth+rate http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=japan+birth+rate

by Zikes 11y ago

But there is a looming population crisis, right? http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=japan+birth+rate http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=japan+birth+rate

Retric 11y ago

Nope. China (365/sq mile) has less than 1/2 the population density of Japan (836/sq mile) and they instituted population control recently. Slowly shrinking populations are generally good for the average person and with most of there debt being internal Japan does not need to grow total GDP. As to rail lines losing money, how much do you think the average road make per year exactly.

seanmcdirmid 11y ago
China is in big trouble demographically. They recently relaxed the one child policy, and that isn't really enough. Sinking populations are bad when it comes to the pyramid nature of taking care of elderly.
bpodgursky 11y ago
I'm sorry, but basically anyone familiar with the demographics disagrees with you. (1) a TFR of 1.2 is not slowly shrinking, it is a collapse (2) you end up a dependency ratio of more than 1 retiree per worker very quickly. So no, it's not good news for anyone born today. (3) it is even worse, because Japan has the world's longest life expectancy. so that 1 child is going to have to support 4 generations of senior citizens. Any kid born today is going to be burdened by an incredibly expensive social net, making it even HARDER to afford to have enough children to even manage replacement. It is a serious catastrophe.
- Gibbon1 11y ago
  It's not that bad since Japans infrastructure requirements are falling as well. And old people often don't require as many resource inputs as children and working age people. Unless you are talking the US with it's relatively unhealthy older population and bloated healthcare system[1] [1] You know where someone is checking out, the system gleefully spends a hundred grand to make sure their last few months of life totally sucks
  - jpatokal 11y ago
    Um, nope. Old people need a lot more health care than young ones, anywhere in the world: http://blogs-images.forbes.com/danmunro/files/2014/04/hccostsbyage.png http://blogs-images.forbes.com/danmunro/files/2014/04/hccost...
    - Gibbon1 11y ago
      It tends to balance out, while they need more health care, they use less of other resources. But put it this way, the US spends about 17% of it's GDP on healthcare. So an aging population is a serious issue. Say you double that and now it's 34% of GDP (yikes). Now consider Japan, 10%. And Japan has a significantly older demographic already. So say it rises 50% over twenty years to 15%. That's still better than the US right now. China's healthcare expenditures are 5% of GDP. Numbers from here. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS
- Retric 11y ago
  Your wrong. Read up on the "per capita" effects of the Black Death which was linked to a temperary prosparity spike. In modern times. 2) the effects of declining population reduce the number of non productive children and increases the number of working childless females which more than compensates. It also drastically reduces new infrastructure needs. 3) your math is way off. A 65 year old worker +25y would be unlikely to have two 90 year old parents let alone four 115 year old grand parents. They would also have .7 children in the work force (65 - 25 ) = 40. So you don't stack more than one generation pluss it's 1.4 children per two parents. This is also just starting Japan had positive population growth in 2010. And negative 0.7% in 2014. The real issue for nations is needing positive GDP growth to keep up with external debt.
  - scythe 11y ago
    >Read up on the "per capita" effects of the Black Death which was linked to a temperary prosparity spike. The Black Death decreased the dependency ratio. The birthrate deficit will increase it. Furthermore the "spike in prosperity" was generally overstated, and may have been a result of increased trade (due to Mongol influence).
    - Retric 11y ago
      It took between 150 and 250 years for some areas to recover so the dependency ratio was only impacted for a relativly short part of that. Foreign wars are a more common ways for the issues your taking about as they kill workers not children or the elderly. WWII failed to have the issues your talking about. PS: We might be entering a time when economy's are more manpower limited than resource limited, but unemployment trends in the US don't support that assumption.
      - scythe 11y ago
        WWII was devastating to the economies of Europe, Russia, East Asia, and North Africa. Do you just make stuff up or what? The period 1330-1480 was not marked by significant economic progress. Europe only started to get ahead of the rest of the world economically after the founding of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange around 1600.
GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
Much like the US has all sorts of scrub lands in the west that knock down the population density numbers, China has all sorts of scrub lands in the west that knock down the population density numbers.
- seanmcdirmid 11y ago
  Not just scrub lands. They literally have mountains everywhere, even between heavy populated eastern cities. If you take a bullet train from Beijing to Guangzhou, it is heavily tunneled for much of the entire trip, which makes the task even more amazing.
  - Retric 11y ago
    Japan is mostly mountans which is why 68.5% of the country is covered in forests. Where farms cover 50% of China and 12% of Japan. Now China has more land at higher elevation and less rainfall on the western half, but elevation is only an issue at steep gradients or extreme elevations. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Atlas_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China#/media/File%3AChina_topo.png https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Atlas_of_the_People%27s...
    - seanmcdirmid 11y ago
      Uhm...no. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_China > Although China's agricultural output is the largest in the world, only about 15% of its total land area can be cultivated. China's arable land, which represents 10% of the total arable land in the world, supports over 20% of the world's population. Of this approximately 1.4 million square kilometers of arable land, only about 1.2% (116,580 square kilometers) permanently supports crops and 525,800 square kilometers are irrigated. > China's limited space for farming has been a problem throughout its history, leading to chronic food shortage. While the production efficiency of farmland has grown over time, efforts to expand to the west and the north have met with limited success, as such land is generally colder and drier than traditional farmlands to the east. China and Japan really aren't that far off on topology.